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Radical Intellectuals

Program #CHON220.
Recorded in Madison, WI
on April 08, 2010.

In this revealing personal
account Chomsky relates formative childhood experiences. He wrote his first
political essay at the age of 10. He recalls, “I’m just old enough to remember
Hitler’s speeches on the radio. I didn’t understand the words but I couldn’t
help but grasp the menacing tone and the cheering mobs. The first political
article I wrote was in February 1939, right after the fall of Barcelona. It was
for the fourth grade newspaper. I was the editor and probably the only reader.
Maybe my mother read it. (laughs) I remember the mood of fear and foreboding at
the time. The opening line was, ‘Austria falls, Czechoslovakia Falls, and now
Barcelona Falls.’ The words somehow have always stayed in my mind along with
the mood of dread and the sense of the dark clouds of fascism gathering over
Germany and Europe. No one could see then the unimaginable horror coming.”

Speaker(s):

Noam Chomsky, by any measure, has led a most extraordinary life. In one index he is ranked as the eighth most cited person in history, right up there with Aristotle, Shakespeare, Marx, Plato and Freud. The legendary MIT professor practically invented modern linguistics. In addition to his pioneering work in that field he has been a leading voice for peace and social justice for many decades. Chris Hedges says he is “America’s greatest intellectual” who “makes the powerful, as well as their liberal apologists, deeply uncomfortable.” He is Institute Professor (emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. At 90, he still gives lectures all over the world. He is the author of scores of books, including Propaganda & the Public Mind, How the World Works, Power Systems and Global Discontents with David Barsamian.